Reverend Michelle attempts to build a bridge. “Ithink we’re not far from some kind of understanding.”
“She served us with a lawsuit,” Mrs. Yeung tells Toby.
“Well, not anactuallawsuit,” says Clemence. What she thinks, but doesn’t say, is that it was more of an artisanal lawsuit.
And as she’s thinking this, she watches Mary-Ann’s expression turn. “It’s not like you even bothered to read it,” Mary-Ann snarls. She turns to Reverend Michelle. “And if you think a mention in your church bulletin is any kind of peace offering, you’re delusional. You deserve to have your roof fall in.”
Reverend Michelle never stops smiling. “God bless you.”
“What is wrong with you people?” Mary-Ann demands in disbelief. Back to Clemence: “And what are you even doing here? Igoogled you. You used to be a big deal. You used to write live dispatches from your honeymoon in Tahiti. So what happened?Where’s your husband?”
Almost as if on cue, Clemence’s phone starts buzzing.
“Here we go again,” sighs Mrs. Yeung.
But Mary-Ann Arbuckle is still staring at Clemence, still demanding. In fact, everybody is watching her now, as her phone continues to vibrate, urgently, impossibly, like it has never buzzed before. Agadget possessed. Dancing across the table, flying off the edge—Clemence catches it in mid-air. “I’ve got to take this,” she says. What else can she do?
“Sure, sure,” murmurs Mrs. Yeung, but nobody else has moved, everybody with their eyes still on her. They’ve got her blocked in and there’s nowhere to go, the bulk of Mary-Ann Arbuckle looming, her yellow braids gleaming, shiny and terrifying.
Clemence accepts the call, knowing precisely what she’s getting into. “Hello.” This is her only escape route.
Silence for a moment, and she wonders if he hung up too soon, then his voice on the line. “Clemence?” That nasal twang she’d gone so long without hearing that her name as he said it wasn’t her name at all. Who was the person he was asking for?
“Hello?” she repeats.
“It’s me.”
“Iknow.”
“I’ve been trying,” he says. “Your mom gave me the number. Ithought maybe it was wrong, and the lawyer was in touch—”
“Iknow,” she says again. “Ijust couldn’t—” And he’s waiting for her, but she’s got nothing now.
The only good thing about this situation is that it has made the tense scene before her in the café disappear, taking the rest of the world with it, the entire universe distilled into a single pinpoint that is the sound of the man she once tried and failed to love telling her again, “This is destroying me.” The same words he’d used all those months before, weeping on the floor in their bedroom. So it wasn’t news, merely confirmation, and she wasn’t sure that hearing it again was any worse that those same words as an echo in her mind.
She tells him, “I’m sorry.” And she is, even though love is about saying sorry, and she doesn’t love him anymore, but she is sorry about that, too. She is so sorry about everything.
He says, “But can’t we try—”
And she says, “No.” She will never be sorry enough for that. She ends the call, and the world comes back, all those around her with no idea of how that seemingly innocuous exchange had made her so vulnerable, every bit of her armour disappeared.
Or maybe they do know. While Mary-Ann across the table seems as invincible as ever, her expression is less defiant. She looks confused. Like everyone else, she is trying to piece together what has transpired, who Clemence had been talking to, how so few words could hold so much weight.
“Are you okay?” asks Reverend Michelle, reaching for Clemence’s hand to steady her, to help her return to the present. Her grip is soft and firm at once, and Clemence is surprised to find she’s grateful for the contact, to realize she is shaking, and how glad she is to not be alone, for this company—Mary-Ann Arbuckle notwithstanding.
Is that Toby’s hand on her shoulder? And even Mrs. Yeung has stopped rolling her eyes.
Fellowship, community—it’s a disaster, but it’s also everything, and Clemence has it in abundance, even after all her mistakes and misdeeds. It was what she’d come home for, and since she’d been back here it had only grown, no matter how motley the fashion.
Clemence suddenly thinks about how Mary-Ann seems impossibly alone, and she remembers. “Hey, Ihave a book for you.”
“Abook?” Mary-Ann looks almost disgusted as Clemence pulls the package from her bag and pushes it across the table.
“It’s a very good book. Millions sold. An entrepreneurial bible. Plus, it’s vintage.”
Mary-Ann has unwrapped the paper and examines the cover. “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” She looks up at Clemence. “Seriously?” Clemence nods emphatically. “Okay,” she says. “Thanks. And listen,” she looks up at Reverend Michelle again. “Ididn’t mean what Isaid. About the roof.”
“Can we have a truce?” asks Clemence. “Because I’ve been losing sleep over this, and Ihate that. And we have other books, if you like that one. All kinds of them.” Toby’s hand is still her shoulder and it’s helping her be brave.
